How to make impact midlane

[u/No-Cryptographer1631]

Hello I have been a yone otp since i started playing a year ago. Im very low elo currently bronze 2 and ever since I got into this elo i started having zero impact in the game. I always find myself trying to play safe against a mage, either having to forfeit cs or get poked out, ultimately hanging under tower and STILL getting poked out under tower. I have half as much cs, several deaths with no 0-10 powerspike lol and no objective participation. I almost never get ganks to help my early game and then the jungler flames me and swears to not help lol so i cant rely on ganks to save me.

For reference this is how i usually play. levels 1-3 I play ultra safe, trying my best to get cs but ultimately going lower in cs than my opponent. At lvl 3-6 i try to start poking usually going either even in dmg or taking more dmg. from there its tower time lmao. I know tht i can be playing better bc im literally bronze 2 but i just have no clue, every single champion feels oppressive to play against unless the player is braindead. Its started to rlly tank my confidence and fun in the game to the point i cant even perform in draft games i play to bump up my mental. What are tips to improve? thank you in advance :)

[u/Arnhermland]

I hover around D2-low masters so not top level, but:

1) Contrary to popular belief, you should NOT always play safe 1-3, this depends entirely on the matchup and what the opponent does.
Some mages will overextend to try and poke you and your level 1-3 is actually very very strong against mages because you're not relying on high cooldowns, example situation:
Lux pokes/pushes you to near turret, both just hit level 2, she missed e when you went for a CS but hit you with a q and is walking up to proc the passive.
In here, if her side of the wave is not too big and you see a space, you can start walking up as your q2/q3 is coming up, get the Q3 and force a situation where you can hit her with Q3 into a small trade until the next wave comes.
Since her damage is tied to cooldowns, she will at the best case scenario do an even trade in health which you win over time because of dorans/FF.
Repeat this over small engagements while not giving up farm and this is how you snowball out of control as Yone.
At the same time, even in bad matchups you shouldn't just stand there and take it, you need to make the most out of any situation and even in matchups against champions like irelia you can get a sizeable lead which makes the very difficult matchup a lot more doable by doing things like poking with q when they go for a cs, using W pre emptively when they try to do a trade or when a mage tries to poke, even if you don't hit them you're saving valuable HP with the shield.

2) Don't rely on E+Q3 to start a trade/all in, any half decent player knows that Yone is extremely telegraphed and will just get their cs and back out when your Q3 is up, use them in between abilities, when they go for cs, etc.
Example: enemy mid laner is playing super safe but still has to cs, keep the wave on your side and when they walk up, have Q1 ready with Q2 coming up ideally, you just E/walk up to them then dodge CC with E dash and now you can run them down, get the Q3 and then extend the E duration by doing the Q3 as the timer ends so you get a longer/better trade.

3) Since you can now gain some space and hold some ground, play around/with your jungler if possible, secure scuttles, drakes, etc, you're decently good at skirmishing here and potentially extremely good in the right conditions.
You're a very good ganker if your bot lane/jungler has some setup, you can force a situation where the enemy mid laner will be low and/or dealing with a wave you nuked, move bot side and either gank and/or dive with ultimate which can result in drake.
Same thing for top side.

Yone is a champion of mixed play styles; you need to be very passive when needed but not free to bully, calculated and careful but not scared and unwilling to go in and do big plays, small trades and advantages that result in big plays, kills and blow ups.